Who is Sven?

Confession: In many ways, Sven Masterson is a nobody. Literally.

Grab a coffee and let me explain…

I’ve been a long-time Starbucks customer. Being the smart ass that I am, I’ve routinely provided fictitious names to baristas asking for a name for my order. It’s simple and stupid things in life that sometimes make me smile.

Several years ago, I offered the name “Sven”. I hadn’t counted on these young hipsters remembering my name and pretty soon they were greeting me with “hey Sven!” when I arrived for another dose of their over-priced coffee.

I enjoyed the experience of being known as someone else. As the years went by, more and more people started to call me “Sven”. My wife and I each took on our “Starbucks names” as personas unto themselves and began calling one another by “Sven” and “Zelda” on occasion.

Meanwhile, after years of using Facebook under my true identity, I finally weaned myself away. Soon after, one of our children decided to travel the world and informed us he would only be placing his travel updates on Facebook. Sigh! I swore off the Facebook lifestyle and was determined to not go back. If I signed back up, I knew I’d be right back into the false “friendships” and would have to undo it all again.

However, I didn’t want to miss out on my son’s travel updates. I needed a solution. I needed an alter ego for social media and Sven was my ticket.

Thing is… Sven had always lacked a last name (“surname” for my overseas friends). I chose “Masterson”. It was my clever way of identifying myself as “The Master’s Son” which reflects my relationship with my master – Yehovah and his son Yeshua of Nazareth.

I never set out to befriend anyone on Facebook as Sven. As part of my journey, I joined an online coaching community where Facebook was a major component. Once again – Sven to the rescue!

As life would have it, I ended up creating offline relationships with these real-life human beings – all who knew me as Sven Masterson.

Today Sven Masterson lives on – almost as an archetype of my self.

So why do I continue as Sven? In short, because I want to limit my involvement to only those who care to know me deeper and invest in a relationship. Doing so allows myself and my family a modicum of privacy from internet trolls and malcontents.